Neuroscience to benefit from hybrid supercomputer memory

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Zurich, 12 June 2013—To handle large amounts of data from detailed brain models, IBM, EPFL, and ETH Zürich are collaborating on a new hybrid memory strategy for supercomputers. This will help the Blue Brain Project and the Human Brain Project achieve their goals.

Motivated by extraordinary requirements for neuroscience, IBM Research, EPFL, and ETH Zürich through
the Swiss National Supercomputing Center CSCS, are exploring how to combine different types of memory—DRAM, which is standard for computer memory, and flash memory that is akin to USB sticks—for less
expensive and optimal supercomputing performance.

The Blue Brain Project, for example, is building detailed models of the rodent brain based on vast amounts
of information—incorporating experimental data and a large number of parameters—to describe each and
every neuron and how they connect to each other. The building blocks of the simulation consist of realistic
representations of individual neurons, including characteristics like shape, size, and electrical behavior.
Given the roughly 70 million neurons in the brain of a mouse, a huge amount of data needs to be accessed
for the simulation to run efficiently.

“Data-intensive research has supercomputer requirements that go well beyond high computational power,”
says EPFL professor Felix Schürmann of the Blue Brain Project in Lausanne. “Here, we investigate different
types of memory and how it is used, which is crucial to build detailed models of the brain. But the
applications for this technology are much broader.”

70 million neurons for the new IBM Blue Gene/Q

The Blue Brain Project has acquired a new IBM Blue Gene/Q supercomputer to be installed at CSCS in Lugano,
Switzerland. This machine has four times the memory of the supercomputer used by the Blue Brain
Project up to now, but this still may not be enough to model the mouse brain at the desired level of detail.
The challenge for scientists is to modify the supercomputer so that it can model not only more neurons—as
many as the 70 million in the mouse brain—but with even more detail while using fewer resources.
The researchers aspire to do just that by engineering different types of memory. The Blue Gene/Q comes
equipped with 64 terabytes of DRAM memory. But this type of memory, which is ubiquitous in personal
computers, loses data almost instantaneously when the power is turned off.

The scientists plan to boost the supercomputer’s capacity by combining DRAM with another type of memory
that has made its way into everyday devices, from cameras to mobile phones: flash memory. Unlike
DRAM, flash memory can retain information, even without power, and is much more affordable. The Blue
Brain Project’s new supercomputer efficiently integrates 128 terabytes of flash memory with the 64 terabytes
of DRAM memory.
“These technological advancements will not only help scientists model the brain, but they will also contribute
to future evidence-based systems,” says IBM Research computational scientist Alessandro Curioni,
who is based in Zurich.

To take full advantage of this novel mix of memory, IBM has been developing a scalable memory system
architecture, while EPFL and ETH Zürich researchers are working on high-level software to optimize this
hybrid memory for large-scale simulations and interactive supercomputing.

“The resulting machine may not necessarily be the fastest supercomputer in the world, but it will certainly open up new avenues for data-intensive science,” says ETH Zürich professor and CSCS director Thomas Schulthess. “The results of this collaboration will support scientific investigations across all types of data intensive applications including astronomy, geosciences and healthcare.”

Towards the human brain

The Blue Brain Project has recently become the core of an even more ambitious project, the European Flagship Human Brain Project, also coordinated by EPFL. The Human Brain Project faces the daunting task of providing the technical tools to integrate as much data as possible into detailed models of the human brain by 2023. Estimated at 90 billion neurons, the human brain compared to that of a mouse contains roughly a thousand times more neurons. The new strategy to use hybrid memory is an important step towards helping the Human Brain Project meet its 10-year goal. As it goes with research and innovation, a scientific pursuit is pushing the boundaries of technology, leading to new and more powerful tools. The Blue Brain and Human Brain Projects have brought into perspective the need to deal with complex

About EPFL

With over 350 laboratories and research groups on campus, EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, is one of Europe’s
most innovative and productive scientific institutions. Ranked top 3 in Europe and top 20 worldwide
in many scientific rankings, EPFL has attracted the best researchers in their fields. The institute’s unique
structure fosters transdisciplinary research and promotes partnerships with other institutions. EPFL at a glanceLatest scientific news

About ETH Zurich

ETH Zurich is one of the leading international universities for technology and the natural sciences. It is wellknown
for its excellent education, ground-breaking fundamental research and for putting its new findings
directly into practice. Founded in 1855, ETH Zurich today has some 18,000 students from over 100 different
countries, 3,800 of whom are doctoral students. 21 Nobel Laureates have studied, taught or conducted
research at ETH Zurich, underlining the excellent reputation of the institute.
ETH Zurich at a glanceLatest scientific news

About CSCS

The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), develops and promotes technical and scientific services
for the Swiss research community in the fields of high-performance computing. CSCS enables worldclass
scientific research by pioneering, operating and supporting leading-edge supercomputing technologies.
The center collaborates with domestic and foreign researchers, and carries out its own research in
scientific computing. Located in Lugano, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, CSCS is an autonomous
unit of ETH Zurich.